Monthly Archives: March 2017
NYC Blizzard Warning Cancelled As Snow, Sleet Continues « CBS New York
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — The National Weather Service has cancelled its blizzard warning for New York City as snow and sleet continues to fall across the Tri-State area.A winter weather advisory is now in effect for the city, Hudson and northern Nassau counties until 8 p.m. Tuesday. The storm was expected to dump a foot or more of snow on the New York City area with wind gusts of up to 55 mph.CHECK: Latest | Forecast & Alerts | Radar | School Closings | Transit | Traffic | Severe Weather Guide | Send Photos | Photos | Videos“The storm actually has shifted, it shifted west,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo told “CBS This Morning.” “There’s less snowfall in New York City, there’s less snowfall on Long Island. There’s actually more in the Hudson Valley and the western part of the state.”
Source: NYC Blizzard Warning Cancelled As Snow, Sleet Continues « CBS New York
Snoop Dogg Pulls Gun on “Fucking Clown” Trump in New “Lavender” Video: Watch | Pitchfork
Snoop Dogg recently jumped on a rework of BADBADNOTGOOD and Kaytranada’s IV single “Lavender.” Snoop stars alongside a cast of clowns (including one played by Michael Rapaport) in the track’s new video, directed by Jesse Wellens and James DeFina. Watch it below. Of the clip, in which a Donald Trump parody reigns supreme—at one point announcing the deportation of all dogs—Snoop told Billboard, “Nobody’s dealing with the real issue with this f–king clown as president, and the shit that we dealing with out here, so I wanted to take time out to push pause on a party record and make one of these records for the time being.” In a climactic scene, Snoop pulls a gun on the Trump clown in a parking lot; later, a chain-bound Trump tries in vain to join Snoop and his accomplice in smoking a blunt. Read Snoop’s elaboration on the song and video concept below, via Billboard.The ban that this motherf–ker tried to put up; him winning the presidency; police being able to kill motherf–kers and get away with it; people being in jail for weed for 20, 30 years and motherf–kers that’s not black on the streets making money off of it — but if you got color or ethnicity connected to your name, you’ve been wrongfully accused or locked up for it, and then you watching people not of color position themselves to get millions and billions off of it. It’s a lot of clown sh-t going on that we could just sit and talk on the phone all day about, but it’s a few issues that we really wanted to lock into [for the video] like police, the president and just life in general.Read our “Icebreaker” interview with BADBADNOTGOOD on the Pitch.
Source: Snoop Dogg Pulls Gun on “Fucking Clown” Trump in New “Lavender” Video: Watch | Pitchfork
Student Satanists Announce Lamb Sacrifice and Bible Burning at Clemson U | Heat Street
As most people know, demonic cults were a myth propagated in the 1990s with the hysteria of ritual abuse spreading throughout the US and Europe. They never existed, but it has become trendy for some people to emulate the imagined practices of Satanists. And now students at Clemson University have announced plans (via a poster) to perform a “live bloodletting and lamb sacrifice” and a burning of Bibles to commemorate the building of a new campus chapel. A poster on campus attributed to a student organization.
It goes on to state that a live lamb will be provided for sacrifice by “[their] friends” at the Clemson Collegiate Farm Bureau. A Bible-torching ceremony is listed as part of the proceedings, with a cash prize for the student who burns the most Bibles. Finally, attendees are invited partake in a pentagram completion event, where they will “help summon Baphomet to celebrate the new Clemson Chapel.”
The “new Clemson Chapel” likely refers to the Cadden Chapel, a building currently under construction on the Clemson University campus. It is named after Samuel J. Cadden, a student who passed away in an automobile accident in 2015. WIS-TV reports that the student kept a bucket list of life goals within his Bible, one of which was to have a building named after himself at the university.
Other Clemson students who passed away before they could graduate will also have their names engraved on the chapel.
The chapel is intended for students of all religious and spiritual denominations, as well as those without, to serve as a place for quiet meditation and prayer. It will cost approximately $6 million to build, half of which has already been funded by students.
Speaking to Campus Reform, the Director of College Relations, Kirby Player, denied the claim that the Farm Bureau would provide the satanic organization with any livestock whatsoever for ritual slaughter.
Given the lack of any location for the event or contact information, it’s unclear whether the ceremony detailed on the poster will take place. What’s likely is that whoever made it did so to troll the friends and family of Samuel J. Cadden, whom such an event would hurt the most.
Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at @stillgray on Twitter and on Facebook.
Source: Student Satanists Announce Lamb Sacrifice and Bible Burning at Clemson U | Heat Street
Press coverage of Trump in first month of office: 88 percent ‘hostile,’ says new study
There was no press honeymoon for President Trump during his first month in office. A meticulous new study by the Media Research Center finds that 88 percent of the broadcast news coverage of Mr. Trump and his team was “hostile” during the first 30 days of office.
The coverage was intense and plentiful. The study, which analyzed both tone and content for evening newscasts on ABC, NBC and CBS, found that the “Big Three” networks produced 16 hours of coverage on the new president and his staff. That is over half — 54 percent — of their total coverage for the month.
“Our measure of media tone excludes soundbites from identified partisans, focusing instead on tallying the evaluative statements made by reporters and the nonpartisan talking heads (experts and average citizens) included in their stories,” write Rich Noyes, research director for the conservative press watchdog, and fellow analyst Mike Ciandella.
“In their coverage of Trump’s first month, the networks crowded their stories with quotes from citizens angry about many of his policies, while providing relatively little airtime to Trump supporters.” the pair noted. “And the networks’ anchors and reporters often injected their own anti-Trump editorial tone into the coverage. ‘It has been a busy day for presidential statements divorced from reality,’ CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley snidely began his February 6 broadcast.
“A new American president is always a big story, but TV news is obsessed with the Trump administration — and not in a good way,” they observed.
The study found that Mr. Trump’s call for a temporary ban on travel from seven specific Middle Eastern nations drew the most negative coverage — over three hours. Other favorite showcases for negative coverage of Mr. Trump included the border war between the U.S. and Mexico, battle over his cabinet confirmation picks and the president’s “complicated relationship” with Russia.
“Further highlighting the hostile tone of these newscasts, nearly an hour of coverage (56 minutes) was given over to anti-Trump protests on various topics, with nearly one-fifth (82 out of 442) of the Trump stories or briefs aired during these 30 days including at least some discussion of an anti-Trump protest,” the study reported.
Mr. Trump may be accustomed to the treatment by now, however. A previous Media Research Center report found that 91 percent of the broadcast coverage about his campaign was also negative — deemed “twelve weeks of Trump bashing” by Mr. Noyes and his team.
‘Secret’ Obamacare Plan Leads Lawmakers on Hunt Across Capitol
House Republicans thought they were writing a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. Instead, on Thursday, they found themselves running a traveling circus.
Following reports that a major chunk of their health-care legislation was being held for House GOP review in a secret room somewhere in the Capitol complex, Democrats and Republicans who hadn’t been invited started the hunt. Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, was first on the scene of the supposed secret location.
“It’s the secret office of the secret bill,” Paul told a gaggle of reporters. After being denied entry by a security guard and staff aide, he quickly turned the moment into an impromptu press conference about legislation transparency.
“I suspect public pressure will make them release it,” he said.
Except, as it turned out, the bill wasn’t there. House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady was in the room, but the Texas Republican said the bill wasn’t.
The audience gathered outside — including House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland — was skeptical, so in they went to inspect. Out they came about 30 seconds afterward.
“No bill here. We cannot find the bill,” Hoyer said.
One Republican lawmaker and a committee aide had said Wednesday that House Republicans would be allowed to review the overhaul plan — but only in a dedicated reading room, and they wouldn’t be given copies to take with them. Republican leaders are trying to avoid a repeat of what happened last time. When an outdated draft leaked last week, it was quickly panned by conservatives.
China Wants To Rip The Internet Out Of America’s Hands
(Daily Caller News Foundation) China released its first strategic report Thursday, outlining its view of how cyberspace should be governed.
The Chinese government demands that all nations should respect sovereignty and avoid conflict and asserts that no single country should control the internet, a clear message to the U.S., the China Daily introduced.
The new strategic report states that “countries should reject the Cold War mentality, zero-sum game and double standards, uphold peace through cooperation and seek one’s own security through common security on the basis of full respect for other countries’ security,” rhetoric typically reserved for criticisms of the U.S.
Beijing is a staunch advocate of shared governance of the internet and aims to “vigorously promote the reform of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), to make it a truly independent international institution.” Under the Obama administration, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) moved to transfer overall control of the internet’s domain name system (DNS) — the “yellow pages” of the world wide web — to a global entity.
China is eager to take advantage of that shift.
“No country should pursue cyberhegemony, interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, or engage in, condone or support cyberactivities that undermine other countries’ national security,” the Chinese report explained, adding that countries should be free to “choose their own path of cyberdevelopment.”
China has come under fire many times for engaging in state-sponsored hacking and human rights violations in the form of internet censorship. The Chinese government asserts that it is a victim of cyber crime and that instead of engaging in censorship, China practices internet management.
The U.S. has accused China of engaging in cyber espionage and stealing intellectual property. For many years, China allegedly used the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to carry out cyber crimes against the U.S., both commercial and government entities. The Chinese Ministry of State Security is believed to have carried out the infamous Office of Personnel Management (OPM) hack, when countless files containing personal data for more than 21 million former and current government employees were compromised.
China has dismissed all accusations as baseless.
Last year, for the second year in a row, China ranked last on Freedom House’s internet freedom list. Using the Great Firewall of China, the most well-known component of the Golden Shield Project, China practices a kind of systematic censorship to prevent Chinese citizens from accessing content deemed unacceptable by the state.
China promotes “cyber sovereignty,” which suggests that it can do as it pleases with its corner of the internet. Beijing focuses on national sovereignty, social order, and national security in all endeavors.
In its new report, China said it will be boosting its military capabilities in cyberspace. “China will give play to the important role of the military in safeguarding the country’s sovereignty, security and development interests in cyberspace,” which could involve targeting foreign entities while promoting its own interests; however, China asserts that its aim is to “prevent arms races and conflicts in cyberspace” and “prevent cyberspace from becoming a new battlefield.”
Chinese observers believe that China’s new strategy represents “a major contribution” to building a new order of governance for cyberspace.
Jeff Baron, a web pioneer who managed millions of domain names before a judge allowed ICANN to give his registry to China without permission, previously explained to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Eric Lieberman that “if a government or non-state actor were to obtain control of the internet’s technical infrastructure, it would be able to engage in global censorship and mass propaganda, among other transgressions.”
“In the wrong hands, ICANN could be used as a weapon to dictate who has access to the internet,” he added.
China states in its new report that it supports “formulating universally accepted international rules and norms of state behavior in cyberspace,” but China’s long-term ambitions are unclear.
‘Depressed’ Wall Street exec jumps to his death | New York Post
A 47-year-old financial company executive was killed Wednesday when he jumped from a luxury apartment building on the Upper West Side, authorities said.Kevin Bell jumped from a ninth-floor kitchen window at the famed Apthorp building on West End Avenue near West 79th Street around 7:20 a.m., a source told The Post.He landed on some scaffolding that was set up in front of the building and was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.Bell left a note indicating that he had been depressed, the source said. He had a history of depression, the source added.He left behind a wife and two daughters, a worker at the building said. His family was at home when he jumped, according to the source.“The family is hysterical. He was under a lot of meds. He did not give a specific reason why he jumped, but he was depressed,” the source said.Bell, a graduate of Duke University, worked at Arrowgrass Capital Partners, where he was head of credit risk, according to his LinkedIn page.He previously worked at Saba Capital Management, Citadel Investment group, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank, according to his page.“We are deeply saddened that our friend and colleague Kevin Bell has passed away today. We extend our sympathies and condolences to his family,” Arrowgrass spokesman Nick Lord told The Post in a statement from the UK.A building worker said some residents saw the man’s body.“A couple of our residents reported hearing a thud,” the worker said. “The daughter of a tenant looked out the window and she told her mother there was a man lying down on the scaffolding.”The worker said the mother saw the body and notified building workers.“He was bleeding,” the worker said. “Some of the residents are pretty shaken up.”A man who works in a nearby doctor’s was stunned about the suicide.“Oh my God, another one?” he said in disbelief. “Somebody committed suicide a few months ago … on the other side of the building. I can’t believe it, it’s almost exactly the same thing, but just around the side.”Among the famed Apthorp building’s famed tenants were Al Pacino, Sydney Poitier and singer and Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson.The building, which is modeled after the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, is listed on the National Register of Historic Placesand takes up an entire city block, from Broadway to West End Avenue between 78th and 79th streets.
Source: ‘Depressed’ Wall Street exec jumps to his death | New York Post